455 | You Don't Have to Figure It Out, Fierce Mastery, and Exploring Your Child's Heart (Pablo Ceron PART 2)
Episode Description
When the bill shows up, the check engine light blinks, or your kid ignores you for the third time, you respond as an orphan, a slave, or a son. In Part 2 of this conversation, Pablo Ceron walks through the frontiers of adversity, fierce mastery, and love, and shows how each one is an invitation to be fathered by God. You'll also hear the simple question that opens the door to repair with your kids when you blow it.
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Pablo Ceron is the Founder and President of WILDSONS, a non-profit dedicated to helping men recover their wild hearts and become the men, husbands, fathers, and leaders they were born to be. He has been a speaker, teacher, and leader in men's formation for over 15 years. Pablo and his wife, Juanita, live in Miami, Florida, with their two sons, Mateo and Lucas.
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The belief that "life is up to me" is the mark of an orphan heart. Your Father is inviting you to stop figuring it out alone.
Adversity threatens the orphan and exhausts the slave, but for a son it's a sparring ring with a Father in his corner.
When your kids have seen you react poorly, repair. Own your part, ask forgiveness, and ask, "What's been your experience of me?"
The places where you feel unskilled aren't a verdict on your manhood. They're an invitation to ask, "Father, would you teach me?"
Love is the greatest frontier, and it calls you to explore the hearts of your wife and kids instead of controlling their behavior.
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WILDSONS: https://wildsons.com
About Pablo Ceron: https://wildsons.com/pablo -
The Muster (WILDSONS retreat) - https://wildsons.com/muster
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Intro
Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where he teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm giving my all.
Pablo Ceron: Adversity for the son, however, is the sparring ring. It is knowing that in the corner there's a Father who has been training me, and who says, "You ready, son? I know that he looks pretty big in the other corner. He looks very muscular, looks very menacing, but you have what it takes. I have trained you.
And you can defeat him in union with me, in my power and in my strength. Whatever this adversity is, we can defeat it together. And on the other side of this boxing round, you're going to come to know much more about who you are."
Jeff Zaugg: Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, this is episode 455, and it's the second half of a two-part conversation with Pablo Ceron. So if you missed last week's episode, episode 454, hit pause now, jump back, and listen to the setup. Today we're taking everything deeper. The second half is so packed. You're going to want the show notes today, because the show notes are going to help you keep your arms around the journey of this conversation.
Pablo shares so much wisdom. He is the founder and director of WILDSONS, an incredible organization. They've been going after it a little bit longer than we have. He's ten years into their mission at WILDSONS, where at DadAwesome we are about to hit nine years old as a ministry. So I am so grateful for the opportunities to learn and grow.
There are takeaways every time I spend time with Pablo, and this conversation does not disappoint. I am so grateful for you guys. Hey, be praying for Pablo. The fall Muster is happening right as we release this. It kicks off out in Buena Vista, Colorado. So be praying for Pablo and the team.
Before I hit play on the second half, though, I want to invite you guys: if you know any dads in the Dallas Metroplex, I will be in Dallas, Texas, with my family doing one of our challenge events. We're doing the Spartan event in Dallas on the 17th of October, just about a week off. And the next day, Sunday, the 18th of October, we're hosting a vision night for the ministry. We have a couple dozen people coming out, but we still have a little bit of room. If you are interested, or you know a dad interested in joining us for a DadAwesome vision night, it's just a dessert gathering to hear a little bit about the nine-year mark as a ministry: where are we at today, and where are we going?
The RSVP form is in the show notes. The location is a beautiful farmhouse in Keller, Texas. So with that aside, and again, grateful for you guys spreading the word, even to another dad who maybe doesn't know about the ministry, where you're like, "Hey, go check this out." I would love for you to spread the word around that vision night. I am so grateful for you listening today. This is the second half of my conversation with Pablo Ceron.
Conversation
Jeff Zaugg: You gave us the gift of sharing a little bit of what you think ten-year-old Pablo would say in this moment about fifty-year-old Pablo. What are a few of the things that exercise stirred up in you?
Pablo Ceron: The invitation provokes me to go into pretty deep waters, because I want to be honest in my conversation. Ten-year-old Pablo was experiencing a very hard season of life. My parents had been divorced since I was six. My mom had grabbed me and my sister and taken us away from my dad, because her relationship with him was not healthy and he was not a good husband at all.
She wanted to protect us from that environment, and so she moved us away. We were living through a lot of hardship and a lot of scarcity and lack. At ten years old, I had seen that we could live a good life. I could see that through the lives of my friends. And I was committed to experiencing that life. I didn't know how.
I had come to believe that I could not receive that from Mom or Dad. If that was going to happen, I was going to have to figure it out by myself in some capacity. And so unconsciously, and I didn't have words for any of this at the time, I made a vow: "I need to make life work. Whatever that looks like, whatever that feels like, I need to figure this out." And that became the banner over my life.
For decades, good seasons, bad seasons, regardless of them, there was always this underlying message of, "I have to figure it out, figure it out, figure it out." Figure what out? I don't know. But whatever needs to happen so that I can have a good life, I need to figure it out on my own. It was a different way of saying, "You need to learn to make life work, because no one is going to help you with that."
That is the description of an orphan: someone whose life went from a Father-centric view of the world, which is God's design, to a self-centric view of the world. "Life is up to me, because I have no one who will truly care for me." That condition has entered every one of our hearts in some way or another, regardless of our circumstances. Even guys with phenomenal dads, at some point in their lives, come to the conclusion that life is up to them.
So I'm speaking out of my specific circumstances to a universal condition. Hopefully people begin to see, "Life is up to me" is how it feels. It does. But it doesn't have to be like that. And so if ten-year-old would have met fifty-year-old, his question would have been, "Did you figure it out? Did you make life work? Are we okay? Are we okay? Are we okay?"
"Are we okay? Did you figure it out?" The answer would have been, "Buddy, I tried and I couldn't, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. However, there is better news. We don't have to figure it out. You can breathe. You can take a deep breath. We're going to be okay. We are fine. We're doing great."
"But not because I figured it out. Because I realized that I can't, and that I shouldn't. Instead I realized that there was an invitation to come back to a true place of sonship, where I can live my life in response to my Father's invitation, as an adventure to be lived with him instead of a problem to freaking solve." And that can be a practical reality on Tuesday afternoon in that business meeting. That can be a practical reality when the bill arrives in the mail and my budget doesn't allow for that bill to be paid easily. When the diagnosis shows up, or when the conflict with my children is taking place, I can live in a place of utter and complete peace, because I have become one with my Father.
I don't know how this is going to turn out specifically. I don't know the mechanics of how this will be solved. But I know who is with me and in whom I can trust. I think the ten-year-old boy in me would not quite understand what I'm saying. But he would say, "But are we okay?" Yes, we're okay. "Can I rest?" Yes, I can. And therefore his life would change.
Jeff Zaugg: He would see and feel. We sat at the same table with my whole family, with you and Juanita, a few months ago. And then I shared time with you guys last night and this morning at breakfast. It takes so little time near you for me to know: everything's going to be okay.
Everything is good. It's better than okay. And it has nothing to do with circumstances. All the time we've logged has nothing to do with circumstances. You may have just received that letter with the bill, or news that things have changed for someone who supports your ministry. You may have received that news right before I rolled up yesterday. And I know this about you and your wife, Juanita: it's all good.
You're doing really well, because there's gladness and steadiness in knowing whose you are.
Pablo Ceron: Now, kindness in this. The moment that the bill arrives, or the unexpected circumstance comes, or the disruption enters life, the first reaction may be, "What do we do with that?" With that reaction, instead of shaming, "I wish that I could live in that level of peace, but I'm not there because I haven't got my act together," quite the opposite: curiosity and kindness. What is this reaction saying? There is fear, there is anxiety.
There is unease. "Okay, Father. I invite you into this fear. I invite you into this anxiety. I invite you into this unease." And can I trust that the fact that this is being stirred in my heart is the very invitation that my Father is extending, to say, "Son, there is something at the level of the heart that I'm inviting you to address"? A mutual mentor that we both admire, Jonathan David Helser, always reminds us in his teachings and in his worship of the voice of the Father speaking to the people of Israel: "I didn't get you out here into the desert to kill you. I got you out here to kill the fear in you." To the disciples in the middle of the water, when the storm is raging and the wind is blowing: "I didn't bring you out here to drown you.
I brought you out here to drown your fears." We're back to the issue of adversity. When adversity comes and we feel threatened, we are only threatened if we are orphans. If we are not under the protection of a good Father who truly cares and who is truly involved in the daily aspects of our lives, in that moment, yes, we are about to face complete annihilation and destruction.
But if we are under the care of a Father who loves us, who is engaged, who wants to be present in the everyday aspects of life, and who has the complete capacity to calm the winds and the waves, then no matter the outcome, I can trust in his goodness and in his power and remain in union with him. Even if the waters are splashing me, even if the ship is crumbling and breaking, I am safe and secure in him. That's why Dallas Willard would dare to say something like, "The world we live in is a perfectly safe world." Wait, what? What world do you live in? What he's describing is this: once, through the journey of healing and initiation, that journey of transformation that our Father is inviting us into, we learn to live in union with him and come to experientially know who he is, and therefore who we are in him, then yes, this is hard. The difficulty is real. But I am safe in him. And with him I can go through the adversity into the glory that he's prepared, whatever that looks like on the other side.
Jeff Zaugg: I'm thinking about adversity with the layer of sonship versus dwelling on fear with an orphan heart. With every micro or macro adversity, you said this: grace. If I initially freak out, if I respond physically, there's grace in that. But this is an opportunity for my initiation. I think about the knife that our mutual friend Greg Winter gifted to me, the reminder that your heavenly Father is still fathering you. So I'm gifted another slice of fathering from my Father in heaven, leaving the orphan path and experiencing more of the Father who runs to me and says, "I'm with you in this."
Pablo Ceron: Yes. So think about that through these three different lenses. If I am an orphan and someone comes to threaten me, I am hopeless. I'm helpless. They're going to run over me. And that's how adversity sometimes feels. When it does, that's an opportunity to realize, "This part of my heart that just engaged emotionally as a result of this adversity feels orphaned.
This part of me has not fully come to be a son." That's the orphan. As a slave, though, it's all about performance. I have to prove. I have to grind it. I have to earn. And so some people just plow through adversity. "I'm going to win it. I'm going to fix it." Sadly, a lot of the masculine culture promotes that. We need to be strong, and we can do hard things in Christ. All of that is true.
But sometimes that is taken out of context and we just drive through it, push through it, from a place of fear and in our own strength. To prove that we have what it takes, to earn the right to rest or peace or whatever. Love and belonging, validation. That's the life of a slave. The orphan and the slave: both Christian men, both loving Jesus, but operationally acting as an orphan or as a slave. Adversity for the son, however, is the sparring ring. It is knowing that in the corner there's a Father who has been training me, and who says, "You ready, son? I know that he looks pretty big in the other corner. He looks very muscular, looks very menacing. But you have what it takes. I have trained you.
And you can defeat him in union with me, in my power and in my strength. Whatever this adversity is, we can defeat it together. And on the other side of this boxing round, you're going to come to know much more about who you are." It is the life of David. When he comes before Saul and says, "I will go and destroy the giant," he was a teenager. How did he become that kind of man, who with that boldness and confidence could say, "I can go take on this adversity, this giant of life," so to speak? He explains why: "When your servant was out with the sheep, he had to kill the lion and the bear." He had been going through that journey of initiation by his heavenly Father, so that when he came to face Goliath, he knew, "Who is this guy?"
And he knew that he was not going to defeat him as the slave, out of his own strength: "I'm going to prove to you that I'm more powerful than you." It's not that. It was in the power of God. "You come to me with sword and javelin, but I come to you in the power of Almighty God."
Jeff Zaugg: My daughters have seen me in adversity. They have felt and seen the ripple of the orphan response, the slave response, and the victim response. Or choosing my wife as the enemy versus the real enemy. They've seen all of it. My little girls have seen slivers, and sometimes it's more than a sliver, of Dad not living in his true sonship.
I feel hopeful right now that they're going to see less of it, because I can enter a different path. But their tender hearts have not only seen it. They've been discipled by their father in watching how I respond to adversity. So what now?
Pablo Ceron: Love the question, because what the enemy would present before you is shame and guilt: "You are harming them." But what the Father presents is love. Each one of those things is another adversity that becomes the opportunity to see who he is and who we are in him. So practically, two pieces of counsel. One: love covers a multitude of sins.
Two, the weapon and tool to use in those cases, both in this case and whenever we harm them, whether we intend to or not: repair. This journey of initiation, this journey of transformation, is a journey of responding instead of reacting. Instead of reacting emotionally to the circumstance at hand, to the adversity, with the panic, the striving, whatever, responding to what God is doing. Easier said than done. And therefore sometimes we only begin to realize it after the fact. "I could have done this. What God wanted was this, and I still reacted in this way. And now my children are witnessing that." Well, have the conversation. I've had that conversation a thousand times with my sons. An example of that. During my fiftieth birthday celebration, all my brothers are around me. They're speaking words over me of what they're hearing from God on my behalf for my fiftieth year, for the season that is ahead of me. The invitation is, "What words come to mind when you're considering Pablo and the season that he's entering?" But now my son is around the table. We've done it in different contexts, but it's the first time that he's listening to what God has to say to me and considering what words the Father may want to speak to me through him. And he said, "The word that I want to share is 'alive,' because I've seen how alive you've been on this trip, and I love seeing you like this." And then he said, "Because I have seen how hard you've been working recently." And he said it with a heaviness in his heart, not with a voice of admiration. Not "I admire how hard you're working, and thank you for being a provider," but with heaviness.
That was not the moment for the conversation, but I put a pin in it and I went straight to God. "Papa, what is it that my son is experiencing of me? What is it that he's watching? Because that doesn't seem like the fruit of watching the life of a son who is working in union with his Father. It sounds more like he's watching the slave who has to make life work because no one else is going to do it on his behalf." And I realized that a part of me, because of certain adversities that I've experienced in the last couple of years, had shifted to that mode of "I have to figure this thing out." It was that young boy, that ten-year-old boy, who came to understand that no father was coming for him, no one was coming for him, and therefore he had to figure life out on his own. Well, that happened again, to a smaller degree, in a smaller way. Because of the adversities that I've been facing, I in some capacity set out to try to figure it out and make life work apart from God. My son's comment allowed me to see that he was witnessing a slave behavior, which allowed me to take that to the Father and say, "Father, Papa, why is it that in this area of my life I'm striving to make life work instead of living as a true son?" He revealed the why. What is the message that I'm hearing through the adversity? I had come to believe that my Father won't come through for me.
I got to repent of that. I got to renounce that and invite him to father me through the season, father me through the adversity, and show me that I have what it takes, that I can move around, that I can throw a jab and a punch. And I'm in that right now. The victory is not quite there circumstantially, but my heart is in a completely different place. Now, to answer your question, all of this is allowing me to come back to my son and sit down with him in private and say, "Buddy, when we were out there, during this gathering, you mentioned this, and I took that to heart. Thank you for the feedback. Whether or not you realized it, or that was your intention, you allowed me to see how I'm modeling sonship to you. And I want to say I'm sorry. You have seen me work hard. Working hard is great.
I love hard work. I love what I do for work. However, there was a layer of striving. There was a layer in which I was trying to figure things out, because I had come to believe a lie of the enemy, that our Father, our Papa, was not truly coming through for me. And therefore I had to do it on my own. So please forgive me, because that's not our Father's heart. And forgive me, because that's not my heart as a son.
I don't want you to learn this. I want you to learn the Father as he truly is. Would you forgive me?" "Of course, Dad. I barely remember what I mentioned." "Okay, thank you. But pay attention. What's been your experience of me? Do you want to say more?" And be willing to hear the feedback. To hear the words, whether I like them or not, whether they feel fair or not. To give him a voice to express what his experience of his dad is, because I'm modeling our Father. I'm telling him with my actions who our Father is. So that's repair. Owning my part and saying, "That's not God. That's not God's heart, and that's not proper behavior. Working hard is great, as long as it's in union with God, in the portion that our Father wants us to work. But life is not about work, buddy. Life is about an adventure to be lived with our Father, not a problem to be solved.
So would you forgive me?" "Yes. Of course, Dad." "And now, would you help me? Let's plan some cool adventures. Let's do some more fun things and not let our days be just about work and routine and striving."
Jeff Zaugg: "How have you been experiencing me? Do you have more to say?" That invitation, for me to just copy that phrase and ask my girls, "How have you been experiencing me?" I am grateful to have a bit of a monthly feedback loop with my girls, so they know I'm going to ask. But I love "How are you experiencing me?" It can stay light, but it can go deep. And sometimes they don't even mean to share something deep, and the Holy Spirit uses that to illuminate. I would love for you to take us into the third frontier. Adventure, adversity. What's next?
Pablo Ceron: It's beautiful. I call it fierce mastery.
Why the words "fierce mastery"? It was our first job description. We're first sons. That is our identity as fathers: sons of God. And for the daughters of God, they're beloved daughters. But when it came to assignment, God told Adam and Eve, "Rule and subdue. Populate the earth, rule and subdue." In the original, the meaning of "rule and subdue" is to exercise fierce mastery over the earth.
John Eldredge unpacks that really beautifully in the book Fathered by God. He says it's like a captain ruling over his own ship, like a king over his kingdom. Exercise fierce mastery. Be capable. Develop the capability, in union with God, to rule over your kingdom well.
Just as we described in adversity and in adventure, the unknown is risky for the masculine soul. That's good by design, but we try to avoid it. In the same way, we try to avoid the places and the things and the challenges where we don't feel confident or proficient, because the biggest question in the masculine soul is, "Do I have what it takes? Am I the real deal? Am I a true man?"
Entering into a place where we don't feel confident may become the report card on who we are as men. It may expose that I'm not truly the real deal, that I'm not the big shot, that I'm not a real man. And therefore most men, I would say all men to some degree, try to avoid the places where they feel uncomfortable, where they lack proficiency.
And then they double down on the things where they feel comfortable, where they are proficient, because that's where they get their validation. That may be one of the reasons many of our listeners, and I have been there, stay long hours at work under the excuse of "I am a good provider and I'm a hard worker," when in fact I'm afraid of engaging in the hard conversations with my wife or with my children, or of being in a place where I don't feel that I have what it takes to solve the issues.
The way that I describe the frontier of fierce mastery is that life will put us to the test constantly. Whether it is because the light on the dashboard of the car is now blinking and we don't understand what that means, the check engine light, or because the outlet in the kitchen went off and didn't work. That actually happened. We were talking about that a couple of nights ago.
Or because my wife wants the house to be different and look beautiful, and I just don't feel that I have what it takes. Or because it scares me to even look under the hood at my finances, because it makes me feel that I don't have what it takes. The invitation from the Father is to shift. Instead of looking at any challenge or any skill that I feel I don't have as a report card on who I am as a man, which is the life of the orphan, or going after it to try to fix it and strive to make it work to prove that I do have what it takes, even though I don't truly feel that I do, which is the life of the slave, we get to turn to the Father and say, "Father, I don't know how to fix this. But would you father me? Would you initiate me?
Would you train me?" And then enter into that new skill set, enter into that challenge that life is presenting, or where desire may be leading you, where you just haven't taken the step because you don't want to expose that you are not the real deal. Well, you were not meant to be the real deal until you are initiated. The lack of proficiency, the lack of skill, is not a report card on who you are as a man. It's simply a reflection that you have not yet been initiated into that aspect of the frontier of fierce mastery. Therefore it's an opportunity to say to the Father, "Papa, would you teach me?" I had an electrical issue in the kitchen, and I was tempted. Three times in the last week I even told my wife, "Princess, would you call an electrician? Have someone just fix it."
And the rest of that phrase that I didn't speak is, "I don't have time for that. This is a disruption to the things that I need to do in life. And I don't even know where to start." Well, pause. "Papa, are you in this?" And I just sensed the Holy Spirit saying, "Yeah, you're getting rusty in your skills of mastery of your home." Since we moved from Colorado to Miami, we haven't done much in our home.
Okay, so I need to dust off my shoulders. I did a little research and understood what was happening and just followed the instructions in union with God. "Papa, show me." And then it worked. And the satisfaction! That outlet and the electric panel and the whole wall are now working, and there's electricity in my house. And I did that. Have you seen that meme of the little kid next to a fire who says, "I made fire"?
It's "I fixed this." We are meant for that. We're created for that.
Jeff Zaugg: It's good for the soul.
There were a few areas of fierce mastery this summer that were hard. It was hot in the garage and the mosquitoes were biting me, but it was finishing a project that I started. I didn't expect my girls to say thank you. I didn't expect my little girls to notice. And there were moments when I was choosing to press in where I probably could have calibrated the schedule and made it an easier lift on my wife. So we learned some things. But overall, their little eyes were shining with gladness and celebration that Dad finished that. And it was a project in my bedroom.
Pablo Ceron: Let me call two things out of that. First, the project itself is an outward expression of what God is doing in your heart. The wrestling and the not knowing, but the learning, and then coming out victorious on the other end. You are a stronger man. You are a bigger man. And then what are your girls seeing? They're seeing the strength of a man who is offering who he is and what he has on their behalf. That's how you fight for the heart of a woman.
It is, "I am here to offer you my strength and offer you my love. I want you to live under the shadow of my protection. I want you to know that in my kingdom you can flourish and thrive." With that little action, and that happening every day, every week, every year, that's what's being instilled in the hearts of your daughters. And the day that they go out into the world and they're considering who their spouse is going to be, they're going to watch for that. "Is this a man who is willing to grow in strength and stature like Jesus did, with God and with men? And then from who he is becoming, will he offer his strength in sacrificial love for me?" Which is our role with our daughters, with our wives, with our children, boys and girls.
Jeff Zaugg: Fierce mastery. A future conversation could exist around each of these, but let's go into the fourth.
Pablo Ceron: The greatest frontier. We talked about adventure, adversity, fierce mastery. The greatest frontier is the frontier of love. Love, our wholehearted engagement with the people entrusted to our care, is the greatest frontier. It is the greatest adventure, because every time we truly engage in an honest and true relationship, we have to enter with our whole hearts into the unknown.
We don't know what's going to happen. You've been married for twenty years, so you know that it's been the biggest adventure. Completely unknown. Think about the moment that you guys got married. I think about my marriage twenty-five years ago. We had no clue what we were getting ourselves into. "Yeah, let's just go. Buy the one-way ticket."
That's what marriage is. It's a beautiful adventure for both of us to enter into. It is the greatest adversity as well, because in order to love, you have to open your heart. And by truly opening your heart, by being willing to bring your heart before your wife, your children, the people that you love, you're going to get hurt. That's a guarantee. With every adventure comes adversity.
In the adventure of love, not every time that you open your heart will you get hurt, but there is a guarantee that sooner or later you're going to get hurt, most likely by the people that you love the most. And so learning to engage in the battle against the true enemy, and not against the person through whom the enemy's hurt came, is the greatest adversity.
And then it's the greatest area of fierce mastery, because in order to wholeheartedly engage in love, we need to become students of our own hearts and students of the hearts of our wives and our children, so that we can love them well in the way that they need to be loved. It is the greatest frontier. Every one of the previous frontiers that we talked about is preparation for that greatest frontier.
We are meant to learn to live by faith and risk with God in adventure, because we're meant to lead our wives into the adventure of life as we enter the adventure of marriage, the adventure of children. It is completely risky. And here's a key part of that. If we don't know how to live by faith, which is what adventure teaches, when it comes to relationships we're going to want to control.
We're going to want to control her behavior. We're going to want to control their behavior. And I find myself trying to do that every day. "Three times I've told you to go and brush your teeth." Control behavior instead of explore the heart. It is the greatest frontier, but it is the frontier that God uses the most to heal our wounds and initiate us.
Every time that there is a conflict with my wife, the internal conversation is, "If she could only," fill in the blank, "then my life would be easier. If she didn't do this thing, or if she did more of that, then my life would be better." And that's completely blind.
Jeff Zaugg: And it's victim. It's grumbling. And those thoughts, even unspoken, are speaking words of death.
Pablo Ceron: So if I'm an orphan, I take the victim place. "She's doing this to me, she's doing that to me, she's not doing this." Or my kids: "I have such a hard kid, and this kid ended up like this, and I'm the victim." And I'm tacitly, unconsciously, making them the perpetrators of my life. "My life would be better if he just behaved. My life would be better if she just showed up for me in these ways that she's not showing up." I'm the victim, and she is the perpetrator. I'm the victim, and my kids are the perpetrators of my life. That's the life of the orphan. The life of the slave, though, is this: because life is up to me and I will make it work, I enter into control. "Do this. I demand that of you. I am not tolerating this." I'm running over her. I'm running over my kids. And the third time that he's not brushing his teeth, I'm forcing him to brush his freaking teeth. It's control, which only causes harm. But the life of the son is different. The life of the son is a life where every one of my needs is supplied and fulfilled by my Father. He provides for all of my needs, not according to my needs, but according to his riches. And if I learn that that is not just a verse to recite on Sunday morning but a practical reality, then with the very thing that I am complaining she doesn't give me, the problem is that I'm going to the wrong person for it. I can come to my Father, who will provide that very thing: intimacy, beauty, understanding, being seen, whatever is the thing that I feel I lack. When he is my shepherd, I lack nothing. And therefore I can now see things as they are, not as I am. In whatever area she may be falling short, I can see it as the speck, because I have taken the plank out of my eye, and I can come and love her well. And therefore the conflict that I'm having with her is not the opportunity to bitch and moan, pardon my language, as an orphan, or to control her as a slave, but as a son, to allow my Father to heal what's within me that is being triggered by her, that may be rooted in my story, in my brokenness, in my crap. And by being healed, I come to her not to ask her for life, but to offer my strength in love on her behalf. The same is true for my children. When the misbehavior continues, instead of being the orphan who's complaining as a victim, or the slave who's just focused on behavior modification, I can come to understand his heart. What are the places where the enemy of his soul is coming to harm him? And I can speak gently and lovingly to his heart, just like my Father does to me. And then from a heart that has been restored in union, we can tackle the math homework.
We can do the brushing of the teeth in two seconds and make it playful. I have to stop controlling them, and instead exercise the fruit of the Spirit, self-control. The only true control that is the fruit of the Spirit.
Jeff Zaugg: Pablo, all four of these frontiers are daily opportunities to receive more love from our Father, to receive his embrace. He's running to us.
Pablo Ceron: That's exactly it.
It's the shift of perspective on what life is about. I don't have to figure life out on my own, which is what leads me to control and desperation and victim mode and striving. That's my Father's job. He is my Father, my protector, my provider, my redeemer, my sustainer, the true end of all things, including my life. He is the vine, and I am his branch, and my job is to reattach that branch to the vine so that I can receive his supernatural life and therefore bear fruit in every season. If that is my focus, and I can receive his life, then my family, my loved ones, get to eat of that fruit and become who God created them to be. It's a journey. It's a long journey.
It's a lifelong journey. So no one is behind. We are right on time in our failures, in our brokenness, in our blowing it. We are right where our Father wants us, and all he's doing is knocking at the door and saying, "Come back home, son. I want to love you. I want to delight in you. I want to show you who I truly am, how much I truly care, how much I want to be involved in the dailies of your life.
And in doing so, I want you to discover who you truly are in me. The warrior heart that you have. The heart of an adventurer who comes alive risking. The life of the fierce master who has what it takes to enter into any challenge that life offers. And the heart of a lover who becomes the conduit of the love of the Father on behalf of the people that he loves." That's the adventure that he's inviting us into every day, as our Papa, as our loving Dad.
Jeff Zaugg: Pablo, two years ago you spent some time with one of our coaching groups, one of our Accelerator groups, and there is a twelve-minute piece that you shared. I have shared that same clip with every coaching group since. It's about Isaiah 61, leb shabar, the shattered-hearted, the brokenhearted, who are the planting of oaks of righteousness for the display of his splendor.
Pablo Ceron: Yes, splendor.
Jeff Zaugg: So it's going to be a bonus link, a bonus resource for these guys, because it layers onto some of this. There are parts of our broken hearts where God is rushing in to flip mourning and tears to joy. We won't go into it now, but that's a little part three here. Thank you.
Pablo Ceron: You're very welcome. Thank you. Very, very welcome, Jeff. This is a treat for me.
Jeff Zaugg: I'm going to send all of our friends, all these dads, to WILDSONS to learn about the Muster, to learn about the Arena online. Is there anything specific where you would say, "Check this out," or "Start here"?
Pablo Ceron: Yes. If anyone goes to wildsons.com, they will see something that says "Start Here." And that Start Here is two things. One, an email newsletter. We're redesigning it now to send some thoughts often on this journey of becoming the fullness of the men, husbands, fathers, and leaders God created us to be. And two, FULLY ALIVE, which is our discipleship journey online. For any man who wants to come and join us and walk this path of becoming together, it's an honor. Then from there, there are retreats and events and a universe of offerings that we're creating little by little.
Jeff Zaugg: I can't wait to hear the stories of the path of hopefully many of our dads. So thank you. Would you close in a prayer over all of us dads?
Pablo Ceron: You're welcome, brother.
Absolutely. Even before I pray, I'd love to invite any listener to turn your heart to your Father and to pray this prayer in your heart to him. Father, thank you that you are my Father, that I am your son, that I don't have to do life on my own. And so today, with my will, with most of my current capacity, I surrender my life to you. I renounce every way in which I am trying to make life work apart from you. I ask you to shine your light into the ways in which I am experiencing life as an orphan who doesn't have a strong Father who is provider and protector and redeemer, and who is present and active in the everyday issues of my life. I renounce the life of the orphan, and I renounce the life of the slave. And I invite you to show me all the ways in which I am trying to make life work apart from you, where I'm striving to make it happen, striving for an outcome.
And instead I open my heart once more to receive your spirit of sonship, by which I can call you Abba, Father, Daddy, Papa, from a full heart. In every aspect of my life that is currently causing anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, I renounce the orphan life. I renounce that life is up to me and that no one is coming to my help.
And I renounce living as a slave, trying to force and strive and prove and earn. Instead, I cry out to you today, Father, Abba, Papa, from a full heart. I ask you to come and father me. I ask you to reveal yourself to me as my everyday Father. I ask you to coach me and lead me in the way that I should go, to counsel me with your loving eye on me.
I love you, Father. I love you, Jesus. I love you, Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Outro
Jeff Zaugg: Thank you so much for joining us for episode 455 with Pablo Ceron. All the conversation show notes, the links, the core takeaways, and the top quotes are going to be found at dadawesome.org/podcast.
Just look for episode 455. Guys, again, thank you for listening. Thank you for pressing in. Let's be dads of action. It's part of our mandate here at DadAwesome: we refuse to settle for intent. We are dads who take action, and let's do that this week. Praying for you guys. Love you guys. We'll be in touch.
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"Life is about an adventure to be lived with our Father, not a problem to be solved." (23:42)
"No one is behind. We are right on time in our failures, in our brokenness, in our blowing it." (40:35)
"Adversity for the son, however, is the sparring ring." (15:05)
"The lack of proficiency, the lack of skill, is not a report card on who you are as a man. It's simply a reflection that you have not yet been initiated." (28:49)
"I'm modeling our Father. I'm telling him with my actions who our Father is." (23:20)
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